major steps needed to transform the Alliance from a US-led organization to a European-led one. Europe would not only have to create a stand-alone pillar within NATO but also implement a treaty reform“to enable the European Union to adopt a stronger defense role.” With a second Trump ad­ministration,“Europe would have little choice but to make ‘strategic autonomy’ a reality”(Bergmann 2024, p. 10). To date, promoting European strategic autonomy has clearly been a negligible minority position in the US de­bate. The need for a truly autonomous European defense policy would increase rapidly if the most NATO-skeptical voices in the US debate were to shape official policy under the second Trump administration. Within a strictly realist worldview, Maitra sees the United States’ role in European security as being limited to an“offshore balancer” that “serves as a logistics provider of last resort and[…] as the final guarantor of free sea lanes and trade routes.” In the longer term, the“likely creation of mini-ententes between various local powers and balancers may eliminate the need for a NATO-like transatlantic alliance altogether” (Maitra 2023). The War in Ukraine The US debate on the Ukraine war has shifted significantly over the course of the war since February 2022. Initially there was broad bipartisan support for President Biden’s policy of helping Ukraine diplomatically, financially, and with weapons transfers. Between January 2022 and De ­cember 2024, Washington provided just under half of all military aid to Ukraine(EUR 64 billion of a total EUR 130 billion). The share of total aid, including financial and hu­manitarian support, was lower, but still substantial(EUR 114 billion of a total EUR 267 billion)(Kiel Institut für Welt ­wirtschaft. These numbers refer to sums actually allocated rather than mere commitments.) Over time, opposition to this aid, initially limited to a small, right-wing group of Republicans in the US House of Repre­sentatives, broadened and became much more influential. As Trump tightened his grip on the Republican Party and even more so since his election victory in November 2024, the discourse rapidly shifted against further support for Ukraine. Instead, it has started to revolve more on how to end the war as quickly as possible even if this means ac­cepting Russia’s terms. At the beginning of Trump’s second term, the prospect of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO is essentially off the table. The policy shift on Ukraine is also reflected in US think­tank discourse. Between 2022 and 2024, the majority of ­analysts advocated for a strong US and allied support for Ukraine, defining the war in Europe and Russia’s defeat in Ukraine as affecting core US interests. That was true for conservative as well as more liberal-leaning commentators and institutions. For instance, Luke Coffey from the Hud­son Institute argued that a“Ukrainian defeat, on the heels of America’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan, will em­bolden Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela to challenge American influence around the globe”(Coffey 2024). He favored lifting restrictions on weapons transfers to Ukraine(and on how Ukraine might use these weapons). Many, if not all, commentators have argued for maximalist positions, underlining that Ukraine must win the war, which would include regaining full control over its territory in its 1991 borders(Brzezinski 2024). After it became clear that Trump would steer a different course as president, than his predecessor Biden, some an­alysts made an effort to frame the US interest in Ukraine in terms more in line with Trump’s transactional mindset. Elaine McCusker, Frederick W. Kagan, and Richard Sims from the American Enterprise Institute stress that ongoing support for Ukraine would be a“better deal” for the US than if Russia were to defeat Ukraine.“Right now,” they write,“by providing aid to Kyiv, the United States is pre­venting Russia from directly menacing eastern and central Europe – something thatwould doubtlessly consume more American resources.” The authors calculate that it would cost the United States an additional$800 billion in de ­fense spending over five years in order to maintain“secu­rity in a strategic environment in which Russia is victori­ous over Ukraine” – many times of what the US has been spending on military aid for the country(McCusker et al. 2025, p. 1). Beyond the aid issue, members of think-tanks have discussed at length the options and arrangements for offering Ukraine security guarantees – especially future membership of NATO. Most analysts agree that membership would only be possible after the war has ended. One point that has been subject to some debate, however, is how NATO should offer a“clear membership perspective.” One proposal has been to either offer Ukraine a Member­ship Action Plan(MAP), which is NATO’s formal bureau­cratic way to prepare a country for accession, or even a fast-track procedure that would bypass the MAP(Binnen­dijk and Franklin D. Kramer 2023). Steven Pifer, a former career diplomat and now associated researcher at Brook­ings, has been an influential voice on this topic. He pro­posed to start accession talks with Ukraine in order to work towards a formal invitation(Pifer 2023, p. 1). Some, like Pe ­ter Rough from Hudson, have argued that NATO should not wait to welcome Ukraine as a member state until there is a comprehensive peace agreement in place with Russia. “NATO’s security umbrella could still be applied to the are­as under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces when major operations cease”(Rough 2024, p. 26). Republican circles criticized former President Biden for never managing to come up with a diplomatic“end­game” that would help end the Ukraine war. It is also true for most think-tank contributions that the focus has been on how Ukraine can defeat Russia rather than on specific diplomatic steps to end the conflict. Many ana­10 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.